The Exploding Nine-Patch - New Pattern

Another EXPLODING pattern! But did you recognize that this is also a Kansas City Star pattern from the 1930s? I love the old blocks and I love keeping them fresh with contemporary fabric and techniques. The Exploding Nine-Patch block is one of those that looks as new today as it did 85 years ago!

Corner Posts from the December 7, 1932, edition of The Kansas City Star newspaper.

Years ago, I collected the KC Star patterns. While I don't have a full set of originals, I do have photocopies of all of them - more than 1,000 in all! They are still a huge source of inspiration for me today. If you know anything about them, however, you know that they often were practically unpieceable for contemporary quilters. Many have set-in seams because they were designed for hand piecers. When you hand piece a block, things that are hard with the machine are much easier! They also (obviously) were constructed with templates - no rotary cutting instructions in the 1930s! And some have so many pieces involved you'd feel like you made a king-size quilt after piecing just one block!

Corner Posts was one of those blocks with in-set seams - also called Y-seams. So not wanting to deal with all those pesky seams I redrew it, changing the Y-seams to half-square triangles. And by using three gradations of one color, the optical illusion gives it depth and makes the blocks pop off the quilt - with NO Y-seams even though it looks like there are!

If you're a fabric junkie (and who among us isn't!) this is a great quilt for you! You need three shades of the same color and one background per block OR three shades and a constant background.

The throw-size version uses a different low-volume per block and no solids for the colors. All these prints is not my normal default when designing quilts, but I love how it turned out! I was able to pull all the fabrics from my stash, making it a great scrap-buster as well.

If you need a larger quilt, just add sashing and borders to get the size you need. Any solid background would be great from shades of whites to navy to black - just as long as it doesn't compete with your block fabrics.

The Exploding Nine-Patch Quilt - 84" x 84"Fewer blocks, bigger quilt! Instructions for both versions are in the pattern.

The Exploding Nine-Patch Quilt pattern is available at your local quilt shop or at my online shop.

To order the paper pattern, click here. I'll get it in the mail to you asap!

If you're the impatient sort, you can order the PDF version for instant download to your computer. From there, print it out and get cutting today! To order the downloadable PDF pattern, click here.

While you're at my shop, take a look at all the new patterns available this Fall from Everyday Stitches!

Cheers!

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